• 
  As coffee approaches the £5 mark, it appears the croissant won’t be far behind.
  
• 
  EXPLORE FURTHER: Gail’s Bakery acknowledges employing a computer algorithm to choose locations for the contentious company’s new outlets.
  

The humble croissant is perhaps the perfect breakfast on the go, an easy-to-hold, delicious-to-eat pastry that has sustained the French for centuries.

Accompanied by a cup of coffee, this buttery, flaky croissant-style pastry from the bakery will keep you satisfied until lunchtime… or perhaps even earlier in the morning. But would you be willing to pay $14 for such delight?

The croissant, broadly acknowledged to have roots in Austria yet embraced by the French as their national dish, costs cents to produce – with its basic ingredients being butter, flour, sugar, salt, and yeast.

Over in
France
, the typical price of a croissant is about €1… however, on this side of the Channel, Brits are finding themselves paying considerably more to enjoy a taste of continental Europe.

Similar to how we treat coffee, our continuous romance with trendy high-street cafés has caused the price of the French favorite to spike significantly as well.
one direction
.

While competition is meant to drive prices down, this age-old notion doesn’t seem to hold true for your everyday cappuccino and morning pastry anymore.

The costs at supermarkets stay affordable—a pack of four all-butter croissants from places like these remains reasonably priced.
Tesco
, Sainsbury,
M&S
and
Waitrose
Retailing for anywhere from £2.20 to £2.50, which is well below £1 per item.

Nonetheless, if you opt for a high-street café, be prepared for the cost to triple. In franchises like
Pret
a Manger, Starbucks,
Costa
The price for coffee and a currant croissant ranges from £2.70 to £3.

Go to the popular bakery Gail’s — which has become a gauge for upscale neighborhoods and can influence property values — and you’ll see various pastries creeping nearer to the £5 price point.

An almond croissant eaten in at the branch on Askew Road in Acton, West London, costs £4.60, £3.90 if you take away.

Fancy a little ham and cheese with your breakfast favourite? You’ll pay £5.90 to sit down and eat it and £5 to take it away.

Over at French-owned patisserie chain Oree, which has branches across London and is inspired by the boulangeries of Paris, the croissants also don’t come cheap.

An almond croissant costs £4.95 to eat in, and £4.50 to take away – as does a chocolate hazelnut version.

At the Danish all-day bakery Ole & Steen, which operates outlets throughout London and in Oxford, a stuffed Danish pastry costs £4.15 for dining inside, and £3.95 when taking away.

At Ottolenghi, an almond croissant costs more than £5 in Richmond, priced at £5.60 for dining-in or taking away — pair it with a premium coffee, and you’ll probably have little to no change left from a £10 note.

Others could contend that making a croissant or pastry demands greater effort compared to other baked goods—this is because a croissant’s dough involves lamination, where butter is incorporated into the mixture to achieve its signature flakiness.

Moreover, making them from scratch demands both time and patience, with the proving and resting periods being crucial for their success.

Nevertheless, it’s improbable that all those elements would total £8, the price of indulging in a croissant at Cedric Grolet’s bakery located within The Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge.

The well-known French pastry chef asks for £8 for a simple croissant. An Instagram user who tested it confessed they found it hard to shell out money for a basic bakery item.

Food blogger Humzah Ghauri, with an audience of 36,200 followers on
Instagram
, mentioned: ‘The croissant was delightful, but I can’t justify the price – unless it was stuffed with something special.’

‘Yes it ticked a lot of boxes but I still can’t justify those prices.’

A short stroll away at Harrods, which charges £12 for its signature croissant, at least shoppers can rest assured they’re getting a topping of gold leaf on the French breakfast classic.

As per the marketing body Project Café UK
In 2023, the coffee shop market had a value of £4.9 billion, representing an increase of almost 12 percent compared to the previous year.

It appears that the sector easily adapted to remote work as the count of cafes increased by 4.4 percent to reach 9,885.

Even though making coffee at home is simple enough, preparing a fresh croissant early in the morning poses more challenges. This suggests that the £10 price point for a combination of coffee and croissant will probably remain intact.

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